


my treasure

by mr_mmo



Series: it was aurora (it always has been) [1]
Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Matrix Fusion, Blood and Violence, Drugs, JUST GIVE IT A TRY, M/M, Plot Based, Slow Burn, agent!Jongho, agent!Wooyoung, agent!Yeosang, agent!Yunho, dead??mingi, druggie!San, druglord!Hongjoong, everyone's an asshole except for woosan!AU, faster updates in quarantine?, i can't tag, i cant believe i wrote this, lots of unneeded fights, matrix/neuromancer inspired, past mentions of mingi, relationships don't happen for a while, sad!Seonghwa, very self indulgent, wooyoung chews with his mouth open
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:29:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23942374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mr_mmo/pseuds/mr_mmo
Summary: Yunho waited for an act of gratitude, a pat on the back perhaps, or a swift handing over of twenty crisp bills, but was met with stereo silence. Seonghwa slowly stepped back, his figure dissociating into Aurora, bag clutched within tense fingers. Soon enough, his entire frame was covered by an influx of data from incoming sensory alerts, a clear reminder that a real, physical world existed. Yunho sighed, giving the database a final glance before succumbing to the pain in his head and letting himself fall into the abyss.OrAurora Agents Yunho and Wooyoung set out to 'save the world' and end up causing more confusion and pain then ever before.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Series: it was aurora (it always has been) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1725910
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	1. intro - our treasure

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, this is my first ever fic posted anywhere?! I'm honestly really nervous about this trainwreck of an AU, but I hope you guys have as much fun reading it as I did creating it. Updates will not be frequent, maybe once every two weeks or so? Depends on the length of the chapters I crank out. I will be adding little notes in the notes of every chapter to explain vocabulary, or maybe just go in depth about the world ATEEZ are living in. 
> 
> Warnings : Excessive cursing, Descriptions of blood and vomit, Descriptions of drugs and effects, Brief description of unhealthy relationship
> 
> this has not been proofread, beta read, whatever you call it, besides by my half-awake ass at 4am. please excuse any weird language or errors i have made. also, yes, i type in actual chapters, i'm sorry that education has made me this way

Yunho smiled foxily up at Seonghwa, arm outstretched in a half intimidating, half sleazy manner, fingers poised daintily around an empty bottle of diobrilgyl labeled ‘Blitz’. The name wasn’t unfamiliar, Yunho had seen Hongjoong putting moronic names on the dissociative only absolute idiots, which there were more than Yunho had anticipated, would be ignorant enough to fall for. His pointer finger pressed against the bottle, hiding the moniker behind his palm. Seonghwa gave an unimpressed eyebrow raise. 

“Your noncompliance won’t help you in the long run, Yunho.” Seonghwa stated, firm and unyielding. His hand was also stretched, long and white fingers beckoning the bottle closer. Yunho snorted, tossing the bottle over to Seonghwa who caught it swiftly, tucking it protectively into the folds of his bag. He took a final glance at the orange bottle, capped with a white twist-on that read several fake side-effects and reliefs. The work was subpar at best, but Yunho figured those buying a hallucinogen on the streets of Hollywood wouldn’t care either way.

Yunho waited for an act of gratitude, a pat on the back perhaps, or a swift handing over of twenty crisp bills, but was met with silence. Seonghwa slowly stepped back, his figure dissociating into Aurora, bag clutched within tense fingers. Soon enough, his entire frame was covered by data from incoming sensory alerts. Yunho sighed, giving the database a final glance before succumbing to the pain in his head and letting himself fall into the abyss.

The feeling was never a nice one, even with a fluffy half-made bed to catch his flailing body. Dry bile surrounded his body and covered his clothes, and an unkept room caught the corner of Yunho’s eye. He woke with a jolt, groaning at the way his stomach acid jumped up into his throat, only to fall back down into its belonging pit. His fingers were bloody and bit, and his eyes stung like they had been burned. Yunho let his body relax as it regained blood flow, his head pounding with data. It was almost as if Hongjoong’s foolish symptoms translated accurately to the drug’s actual side-effects.

His roommate, Wooyoung, was long gone, slumped against the wall of the shower as he sluggishly waved his arms back and forth, scraping his fingernails against the clean glass. Yunho liked to think that all the homeless people at the Hollywood and Vine station on a Sunday evening were all just dissociated into Aurora, even though it was certainly not the case. Aurora was only for the elites, the unprotected, the royalty. And so it always struck him a miracle he somehow made it into Aurora with little to no resistance.

Yunho fought the urge to beat Wooyoung out of his haze, out of Aurora, he knew it hurt, more than going through the slipstream for eternity. Plus, Wooyoung was probably dealing with important business, as he always liked to brag about. Instead, Yunho hauled Wooyoung’s body out of the shower and locked himself in the glass box before the younger could clamber his way back in. 

His back hit the marbled tile in the shower, and his knees slid down until he was squatted on the floor, head bent into the corner of the shower door and wall. The ever-present smell of vomit made Yunho gag, entire body hurling off the wall and falling onto the tile floor, hands grasping relentlessly at the drain.  _ It was never this bad _ . He felt Hongjoong’s antagonizing smile pulling at his figure, coming up through the hair-filled bleached drain to strangle Yunho on the floor until he could only dissociate, only live in Aurora. It was Hongjoong’s dirty and vile dream, to dominate the human world as their overlord, to overload them with Aurora until they killed themselves, slowly and cruelly, until only few survived and surrendered to his power.

Yunho felt another wave of nausea crash over his body as he attempted to push his body off of the floor, muscles flexing until they hurt from overexertion and gave out, heart pounding faster, faster, louder until it forced him back down, eyes shutting from the impact and ears ringing. The frosted glass panes swirled around him in fluttering geometric patterns, bracing for impact when Yunho’s weak fist came to deter them. The blunt force didn’t hurt, the shower had withstood much stronger and Yunho wasn’t in the mood to feel.

He could barely make out the short figure make its way to the shower, hands gracefully opening the slider door, nimble fingers grasping at his shirt tightly.

“Fucking idiot,” Wooyung grumbled, hands hauling Yunho up by the collar off the wet floor and onto the bathroom tile. Yunho mumbled incoherently, eyes glazed over with terror, mouth half open in a juvenile innocence. He grabbed at Wooyoung’s stature, fingernails scraping the man’s back and exposed arms. “Fucking hell-” 

Wooyoung threw Yunho against the bathroom door, strong arms forcing the man in place. “Snap out of it, Yunho.” Yunho’s head fell back, cracking unpleasantly against the white backsplash Wooyoung had gotten placed only a few weeks ago. The younger was quick to support his head from more trauma, left hand still placed against Yunho’s chest firmly. “Yunho!” 

Yunho gasped, body lurching forwards in a swift movement to push both of them onto the floor, heart pounding and head rushing with data.  _ Aurora.  _ All he could see and feel were numbers, brackets and braces, tildes and asterisks. The foreign world coiled around him like a constrictor, backsplash and showerheads only fed him relentless information. The sensory overload made him twitch until his body could not take the endless stream of data, hippocampus thumping in Yunho’s head until it threatened to spill. 

“Shit- Yunho!” Wooyoung yelled, slapping Yunho on the back once, twice, three times, until he threw up again, chips and memory drives and sharp-cut cds lurching out of his mouth onto the bloodied floor. Hongjoong was staring at him from the shower, sinister grin stretching out to bid him farewell. Yunho had the overwhelming urge to close his eyes, to return to Aurora, to make the pain go away. But he wasn’t a coward, he wasn’t like Seonghwa, too afraid to face the dangers of the human world, too scared to  _ feel  _ again. 

Yunho’s eyes felt heavy against his face, they sagged under pressure and refused to meet Wooyoung’s dangerous gaze. He could finally feel, the frosted panes of glass in front of him and the vile smell of dried vomit. His ears rang from pressure, blood rushing to his toes in an effort to warm his rapidly disintegrating body. Wooyoung sighed, releasing his deathly grip on Yunho to let him breathe. The cold wind from the slightly open window just south of the shower reminded Yunho that it was at most, just past sundown. He had entered Aurora nearly 14 hours earlier, a quick trip to give Seonghwa the Diobrilgyl, but the slipstream had caught him for a longer time than he’d wanted. So, as it seemed, he had spent the last five hours swimming in a sea of figures and statistics, grasping onto any grounding sense of reality, or, in this case, the shower wall.

“Fuck-” Yunho’s voice broke as he gagged again, Wooyoung soundlessly slapping his back again. The younger was brutal and obviously worried, his fingers digging into Yunho’s back as a warning. 

“Don’t pull that shit again, Yunho. You could’ve gotten stuck,” Wooyoung hissed, voice laced with betrayal and panic. His eyes were wide with anticipation, and his gray hair stuck up every which way, blood covering his pale complexion. “Like Seonghwa,” he added, spitting the name like acid from his stomach. Yunho chuckled dryly, lips aching for moisture. His bottom lip cracked from the action, and a trickle of blood escaped it, caught by Wooyoung’s soft finger. 

Wooyoung somehow managed to haul the both of them off of the bathroom floor, dragging Yunho by his arm until they collapsed once again onto the carpet of their shared studio. The carpet was filled with crumbs, dust, lint that stuck to their blood-ridden vomit-covered clothes and caused Wooyoung to cough, arm releasing Yunho to cover his mouth. Yunho could have sworn he’d saw a stray rat run across the carpet under his unkept bed, lanky gray body hiding under his heap of blankets and shower towels. Wooyoung also seemed to notice it, because he sprang up, his shrill voice screaming into Yunho’s oversensitive ears.

“Fuck this, man!” Wooyoung yelled, body scrambling to find higher ground i.e. his own bed. Yunho quirked an eyebrow, body refusing to get off the floor but managing to crawl over to Wooyoung’s side of the room, back leaning gratefully against the wooden bedframe. “We need to move out, Yunho.” Yunho laughed good-naturedly, eyes twinkling with feeling as he struggled away from his shirt. His hands grabbed at his collared button-up, attempting to undo the half-hazardly done buttons and escape from the confines of clothing. “What the hell are you doing?” Yunho whined like a child, taking an unneeded breath as Wooyoung briskly released his shirt, throwing the piece somewhere in the vicinity of their hamper. 

Without the restrictions (and smell) of his shirt, Yunho properly relaxed against Wooyoung’s bed, deep breaths testing the limits of his stomach. He could feel Wooyoung shift around in his bed, waiting for Yunho to talk, to move, to feel. Yunho stayed stationary, focusing on his shallow breaths and training his eyes to not fall shut as soon as they opened.

“So, what the hell was that about?” Wooyoung finally blurted out, confused and displeased. Yunho didn’t have to look up at the younger to recognize his irritated face, the way his features tensed at the center and relaxed at the edges, his eyebrows furrowed and nose scrunched. He shrugged. Wooyoung barked in disbelief. “You’re really going to shrug this off as another mistake? No, seriously Yunho, what is this about? What shit are you taking from Hongjoong?” Yunho froze, turning his torso to meet Wooyoung’s irate gaze. The younger’s gray hair fell into his eyes, masking the true fury that he was usually met with. 

“How do you know I’m meeting with Hongjoong?” Wooyoung scoffed, getting up from his bed to walk aimlessly around the room, visible cogs turning in his head. His fingers were clenched by either side of his hips, painted fingernails scraped and bit at. 

“I’m not fucking ignorant, Yunho. It would be nice if you answered my question,” Wooyoung snarled. “This isn’t about you and your  _ affairs _ , this is about me being a good friend and worrying for your health.” Yunho’s eyes squinted, hands thrown up in feign-surprise. 

“What sort of affairs are we talking about here, Wooyoung? You don’t take me as someone who sleeps around, do you?” Yunho inquired, sneakily smiling as Wooyoung faltered, expressions showing obvious confusion. “You think I’m sleeping around with Hongjoong to get on Seonghwa’s good side, don’t you?” Wooyoung shivered as Yunho started to get up, wobbly, yet firm, feet planting themselves on the dirty carpet, footsteps growing closer and closer to his figure. He finally turned around, blazing eyes meeting Yunho’s who looked purely satirical. “Answer me.” 

“Yes, and what about it?” Wooyoung hissed, hands gripping tighter at his side. “I’m not wrong, am I?” Yunho laughed, head thrown back like Wooyoung just told the funniest joke of the century (which merely for general information, he didn’t). His body turned, heading back to Wooyoung’s bed where he flopped upon it, fingers twiddling against his side mindlessly. 

“It was Blitz. Some sort of synthetic diobrilgyl, I suppose, I didn’t ask him on the specifics. Got Seonghwa to think it was the real thing, though, the imbecile. For his age I’d expect him to pack at least a few more brain cells.” Yunho wandered, watching in amusement as Wooyoung’s expressions reeled through anger, confusion, clarity, and finally, disbelief. The rat from behind Yunho’s bed peeked its head outside the frame, and peered at Wooyoung until he also caught sight of it, mouth open in horror.

Yunho barely had time to catch the hurling body in the air before it hit the ground, gray hair spinning around and voiceless screech hanging in the air as the rat charged towards Wooyoung, beady red eyes focused on one victim and one victim only. “Fuck, he must really hate you,” Yunho commented, hands releasing Wooyoung onto his bed, springs complaining as he bounced up and down from the recoil. Wooyoung cursed, clambering close to Yunho and watching the rodent spin around in confusion. His slippered feet hung in the air, twitching every now and then to keep the blood flow running. Yunho barely kept in a laugh. “For an Aurora agent, you sure are jittery.” 

“Killing people and  _ rodents  _ are much different, Yunho,” Wooyoung hissed, though there wasn’t any bite to the statement. The tension from mere moments before still hung in the air, waiting to drop upon the bed and send them both running, but the subject has since long gone stale and was unimportant to the both of them. “Don’t take any more shit from Hongjoong, we know he’s bonkers.” Yunho chuckled, arm wrapping protectively around Wooyoung, mouth threatening to gag if he smelled Wooyoung’s bile and blood covered hair. 

“Can’t promise that, Woo, he just contracted me for another job.” Wooyoung’s eyebrow raised.

“What sort of job?” Wooyoung dug, sitting upright and eyes bright with interest. Yunho grumbled to himself, something about wanting to do something himself for once.

“It’ll be dangerous to you. Some sort of smuggling Caine into Seonghwa’s workplace and getting the blessed workers buzzed until Seonghwa finds out and forces himself out of Aurora. Says it’s the first part of his ‘divine plan’.” Yunho explained, smiling when Wooyoung snorted in doubt. Their studio was small, it always had been, but it was comfy, even in their more tried moments (such as their rat friend). Countless memories had been strung up around the walls on posters and polaroids, anime and superhero figurines covering the little desk space they had and half-eaten cans of pringles lined their beds. Wooyoung caught his body before he barreled into the house of cards they’d constructed several days before.

“Sounds like a bunch of shit. Plus, isn’t Seonghwa’s body discorporated into Aurora or something like that?” 

“Rumors.” Wooyoung hummed in response, eyes fluttering shut for a moment before forcing themselves open. In moments like this, Yunho faltered to not notice the passive and almost blissful nature of the two of them. The two of them, as aggressive as they may seem, were like true brothers. Soulmates. It wasn’t often they were caught in the same timeframe or dimension, and even less when they were in the mood to actually talk. Wooyoung had ‘things’ to do, Yunho had discovered them as undercover operations for a third party organization based in Seattle that was smuggling agents from Aurora out into real-world testing facilities. He had invited Yunho to join him at one point, probably years back, but he refused. The whole world of organized crime wasn’t something he’d wanted to get particularlly invested in, especially after the whole catastrophe of Hongjoong and his cult. “You gonna do it?” 

Yunho exhaled loudly, hand coming up to support Wooyoung’s head as he scooted towards Yunho, body practically falling onto his lap. “I don’t know. Should I?” Yunho was met with an uninterested shrug.

“Dunno. I told you, he seems deranged to me. Even more so then Seonghwa, and you know how I feel about  _ him _ .” Yunho snorted, ruffling Wooyoung’s hair softly, careful to not mess up his product-covered waves crunchy with dried blood and whatever Yunho ate eighteen hours prior. Wooyoung made a muffled sound of appreciation, rolling over on Yunho’s lap and staring up at his scrunched up stature. “I say no, actually. Hongjoong is fucking crazy. No discussion ‘bout it.” 

The two of them laughed, quiet snorts and cackles covered by the loud sirens running from the streets below them, fan next to the hamper making uneasy noises every time it rotated.

“You can say that again,” Yunho managed to whisper, voice cracking as he felt a surge of emotions run through him. Being with Wooyoung in their shitty studio felt like  _ home _ . 

“I don’t wanna,” Wooyoung mumbled, pulling another bubbly laugh from his sternum and forcing him deeper into Yunho’s stomach. The fingers weaving through his hair stopped, and retreated, sticky with leftover hairspray and red liquid. Yunho clenched his teeth, wiping his hand on Wooyoung’s bedsheets, ignoring the streaks of blood he left throughout the otherwise fairly-clean linens. “I’m still mad at you,” Wooyoung whispered, mouth muffled by Yunho’s bare sternum. Yunho smiled, hands itching to return to the younger’s silver hair hanging in curtains over his forehead.

“I know.” Wooyoung huffed, turning around again to face Yunho’s bed, arms folded across his chest like an angry child. “You have every right to be,” Yunho continued, eyes fluttering shut for one, two three moments before popping open, dirty hand rubbing them until they were red and raw.

“Hey, Yunho?” 

Yunho hummed in response, his mind preoccupied with Aurora, and more prominently, not letting him or Wooyoung go to sleep. “Do you ever wish you never got into this?” 

Yunho took a sharp breath, hands stalling at his side as he looked down at Wooyoung, who had a whimsical expression of a childlike nature. “Like- If we never had to go through this. If we were just  _ normal _ . You know? Like all those people out there.” Yunho took note of the way tears collected at the corner of Wooyoung’s right eye, the way his lips pursed unhappily. Wooyoung exhaled shakily, regaining eye contact with Yunho. 

“I-I don’t know,” Yunho confessed. He felt chills run up his back, Aurora calling him, but he refused, he had to. Wooyoung still looked lost, a little wistful, hands unfolding to hang loosely off of the bedframe. “Do you?” 

Wooyoung grinned abnormally, eyes lighting up with hope, something Aurora had extinguished from him years before. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I really do. I want to live a normal life, Yunho. I want to go to school. I want to go to Disneyland and hang out with all of my  _ normal  _ friends. I don’t want to fear for my life anymore, Yunho. Don’t we all?” Wooyoung sounded watery, and the tears running down his cheeks weren’t hidden in their ducts. Yunho’s heart stopped, dropped to the carpet where it was crushed under the rat’s plump body. His hands came out, shakily, to grasp at Wooyoung’s trembling figure, pulling him close. “I have to go- in an hour. I don’t want to, Yunho, it hurts,” Wooyoung gasped, flopping around for the final time to embrace Yunho as a pained sob escaped his throat, hands grabbing restlessly at Yunho’s bare skin until blunt crescents were left in their path. Yunho sat, silently, holding Wooyoung, tongue secure under his teeth. “It hurts so much.” 

Yunho pulled at Wooyoung’s hunched over body, allowing the boy to hug him properly. How long had it been since Yunho had seen Wooyoung like this? They weren’t allowed to be open, to feel emotions, because in the long run, they were nothing more than a resource for Aurora. Like everyone else, oblivious or knowing. 

Wooyoung smelled like death. It was imminent, they should have known, and yet it still struck Yunho profoundly every time he recognized it. The boy was  _ dying  _ and he couldn’t do anything about it. What could he do? He himself was also dying, they  _ all  _ were. The blood crusting over their soft features and dried spit framing their lips couldn’t cover the scent of rotting and deceased flesh, eating away at itself as Aurora slowly, little by little, ingrained herself into them, until they were nothing but a shell of data, to use as she pleased.

“I’m sorry,” Yunho whispered, gingerly, into Wooyoung’s general direction, smiling at the boy’s blissful smile, whether out of hysteria or dream. “Don’t fall asleep, now.” Wooyoung whined, pulling at Yunho’s embrace to rouse himself.

“I wasn’t,” Wooyoung defended, letting Yunho go after some hesitance and edging himself closer to the end of his bed. His feet hit the carpeted floor lightly, sending the stray rat skittering back under Yunho’s bed. This time, Wooyoung only made a single squeak, head twitching towards the sound. “I’m taking a shower.” Yunho didn’t have the strength to remind Wooyoung about the copious amount of vomit and blood that was covering every surface of their bathroom, the man had probably seen it a thousand times anyway. “You should too.” 

Yunho made a noncommittal noise, sitting up straighter to make sure Wooyoung didn’t fall on his way to the bathroom. In any sort of ‘normal’ situation, they may have been seen as lovers, even more, perhaps. But in a world, their world, where the need for emotion and feeling was as restricted as it was, any physical touch was sacred to them, even on the platonic level. Yunho knew what Wooyoung was going through. He always did.

Wooyoung was a fairly new agent, only a few years in, still bright-eyed and faithful in what he was doing. Yunho saw himself in the boy, as cheesy as it sounded. Wooyoung was strong, careless, and in some sense, reckless. He did what he wanted, not what Aurora or money or Yunho wanted, and he took the repercussions for that. It was admirable for someone like Yunho who was stuck in the same monotonous routine, afraid of breaking what he’d always done.

Wooyoung was still  _ alive _ . He still tried to take care of himself, even on the days when he felt nothing but emptiness. He still  _ tried,  _ the word itself foreign to Yunho after years of not trying.

Yunho recognized Wooyoung’s need from the minute he fell onto his lap, tears dribbling down his cheeks as he clutched onto his bare skin. Love. Not the parental or platonic love Yunho had been so good giving him, not the love of whatever was within him keeping him alive, true, untethered love. It was disconcerting to Yunho, the feeling, it was unnerving and unnatural. He would have warned Wooyoung, that feeling such a thing isn’t good, it shouldn’t be felt, but the boy was desperate, and Yunho couldn’t crush the one dream the boy had.

Perhaps he was so distant to the image, love, because of him. Yunho chuckled dryly, pushing his imminent thoughts back with the swallow of built up saliva, past name washed to the back of his throat where he choked on it. 

Wooyoung didn’t know of it. The one time he allowed himself to feel as a human for a day, the time Yunho  _ let go  _ of the harrowing constraints of Aurora and felt the world as a normal man. He vowed to never let Wooyoung know of the pleasures of the world. It would drive him to insanity, the constant chase for satisfaction all humans followed, all except for them. Their pleasure was hard earned, satisfactory pain. Their pleasure was Aurora.

Aurora.

Aurora.

_ Aurora. _

\--

_ “Fuck, this feels good,” Yunho remarked, hand clutched around a shot of vodka, eyes wandering from one dancing figure to another. Hongjoong chuckled darkly by his side, own hand poised daintily around his own drink, some sort of fancy mix of a thousand-and-one ingredients. His painted pinky was raised ever so slightly, it made Yunho feel both extremely uncomfortable and slightly bougie. _

_ “You’ve never done this?” Hongjoong asked, breezy voice going in one of Yunho’s ears and leaving the other. Hongjoong, outside of Aurora, was like a breath of fresh air, light and good-hearted, eyes crinkled at the ends and cherry-red hair falling like waves around his face. No one would know he ruled a multi-million dollar drug business that enslaved thousands and killed millions. Yunho shrugged one of his glitter covered shoulders, batting an innocent eye at the man. _

_ “Seonghwa doesn’t let me,” Yunho mumbled, pouting childishly at Hongjoong. The elder snorted, sipping daintily from his drink that was changing colors, oh, those were just the strobe lights. Yunho giggled. “Says its only for trouble-makers. I think he doesn’t get out enough,” he added, raising an eyebrow at Hongjoong. The lights started switching faster, beams of blue interchanging with flashing yellow and red. _

_ “Don’t listen to him. He’s ignorant to this world,” Hongjoong mused, eyes trailing off towards a woman in a tight dress lined with sequins. “What’s with you and him anyway? Don’t tell me you’ve been working for the LGI.”  _

_ Yunho shook his head drunkenly, hands squirming in a means to communicate ‘no’. He had never felt this good before, so many emotions, so alive. His shot spilled in his haste, and he was quick to lick the rest off his hands, much to Hongjoong’s displeasure and disgust. _

_ “No. Just been snooping around his. He’s easy to please,” Yunho explained. Hongjoong seemed eager to agree, his own drink gone within a few seconds. _

_ “Everyone knows how easy he is to convince. Too good for his own good, if you know what I mean. It’s a shame, really, he could have been so useful. And a waste of his face, too,” Hongjoong alluded, trace of a smirk disappearing under his rimmed glass. Yunho choked on his spit. He stared at Hongjoong in oblivion, who only raised his hand slightly at the bar for another on of his fruity-concoctions. _

_ “Y-you- Are you courting my boss?” Yunho’s eyes widened as his one and only secret spilled out of his mouth like the vodka in his shot glass, shaking hand covering his lips in a futile attempt to rearrange his words. “I-i I mean-”  _

_ Hongjoong cackled, red pinky appearing more menacing the more Yunho thought, lips stretched into a grin. His drink swirled in its glass as his fingers moved the base around on the bar, eyes now attached to Yunho’s horror-stricken face. _

_ “Has he been teaching all his agents to be easy too? What a shame, I was looking for more of a game.” Hongjoong came up to whisper in Yunho’s ear, cold, yet burning with passion. “Let me teach you something, Jeong Yunho. Don’t get into mine and Seonghwa’s business, even with his permission, okay?” Hongjoong asked, eyes burning into Yunho’s blank ones. “It’ll save you a lot of hurt in the long run. But it’s okay. This time, I’ll let you off the hook. Someone else deserves it anyway.” Yunho gasped, shot glass thrown onto the ground and red lights stationary as people around them continued to dance. _

_ “Don’t you dare hurt Seonghwa,” Yunho hissed, grabbing Hongjoong by the collar, a not-so-wise decision. The man barked out a laugh, effortlessly shaking Yunho’s weak grip off of his low-cut shirt encrusted with small diamonds he knew were worth more than all of his organs on the black market, combined. _

_ “Run along, little agent. You don’t know what you’re messing with.” Hongjoong chided, omnipotent smirk challenging Yunho’s frail figure. The younger squirmed away from his seat, feet already running towards the exit. Hands gripped his waist firmly, and he yelped in surprise. “And for the record, he’s mine.”  _

_ he’s mine. _

_ he’s mine. _


	2. his treasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings : Excessive swearing, Excessive drug use, Descriptions of blood and vomit, Uncomfortable morals(?)

A _urora_

Aurora

Aurora.

Yunho gasped deep, hard breaths as he scrambled to find solid ground, a surface, anything. He sunk deeper, memories swirling around him as Hongjoong’s delicate painted pinky dipped in his Malibu Sunset, red bleeding into hues of orange and pink. His fingernails scraped against the dark matter, falling deeper, deeper into the slipstream, until, at last, a hand caught him. The hand was weak, probably weaker than him, but it was relentless, holding him until he was slowly cast up, gasping and heaving onto the ground.

“Holy shit.” Yunho groaned, body losing all tension and falling to the ground with a crash. He’d made it out. He could _feel_. His fingers felt wet, bloody, filled with dirt. Not Aurora. Pavement. His eyes managed to open, it was bright, too bright, the last he’d been conscious the sun had just set. 

“What the fuck. Seriously, what the fuck.” An unfamiliar voice was pulling at his ears, it was high pitched, possibly higher than Wooyoung, and held a ring to it he hadn’t heard in a long time. A true human. Blessed. “What in the fuck.” Yunho made a clear effort to make it off the ground, but his legs fell useless, and his arms fluttered in the open breeze. “Who trips midday? Well, I’ve done that before, I guess,” The voice asked, mostly to himself, but still held out a hand. “Wait, hold on to me, I’ll help you up.” 

Yunho located the arm, it looked stronger than it really felt, but he reached out towards it, cringing at his scraped and bloodied arm. The stranger also seemed appalled by it, but held on and pulled Yunho up until he was standing, weak legs buckling under his weight. The blood pearling on his cuts reminded him of the pinky curling around that glass base, the hair that fell over his almost perfect face structure. Yunho gasped for more air, the slipstream pulling him back at the thought of more memories. _No more memories_. 

“Thanks,” Yunho whispered, trying to create a grateful smile for the stranger, meeting his eyes, finally. He was mildly surprised, the guy had bright blonde hair and pinkish eyeshadow smeared across his lids, a small smile atop his lips. “Fuck.” The stranger’s eyes were full of curiosity. Yunho wanted to punch him. 

“Bro- You can’t be tripping out here, it’s like, what, 7 am? Even I don’t get high this early,” the stranger cackled in disbelief, much to Yunho’s dismay. His outstretched arm curled back around him protectively, blood smearing across the stranger’s white work-out top. “And what’s up with your arm?” Yunho sneered, stepping back to prevent the stranger from coming closer. The thought itself of letting a normal, a _blessed_ , touch his cold, emotionless body felt sacrilegious at best, even from a soft-smiled blonde haired man. 

“None of your business,” Yunho whispered. His brain was working faster than it usually did, memories filing through his hippocampus and rearranging themselves nicely for Aurora. _He’s mine_ . Hongjoong was standing behind the blonde man, he wasn’t, but he surely was. Because his red painted pinky and teasing smirk was still waving at Yunho from the distance, diamonds sparkling under the morning sun. Because no matter what, Hongjoong was _always there_.

“S’ what they all say,” the man mumbled, brushing himself off and hesitating at the sight of blood on his shirt. He was still smiling, a little creepily perhaps, but he looked energetic and curious otherwise. “Can I help you? You look lost- oh! You’re a tourist aren’t you!” Yunho shook his head, looking down at his body that somehow had obtained one of Wooyoung’s old sweaters from the depths of their wardrobe. Wooyoung. 

“Oh fuck,” Yunho cursed, knees buckling as he started to fast-walk away from the stranger, ankles screaming at him to slow down. But he wouldn’t. The man was saying something at him from their original meeting place, but Yunho couldn’t bother to listen. The guy was probably on his regular morning run, he’d forget about the entire encounter in a few days. So he hoped.

Yunho’s eyes squinted when they met the blonde man again, lips slightly pouted in a way Yunho wasn’t prepared for. His eyes begged for explanation, hands curling and uncurling by his hips. “What do you want?” he asked, watching the man’s eyes slowly curl into crescents that resembled one of those lucky cats at a Chinese restaurant. 

“I’m just trying to help you out, tourist boy!” the boy said, giggling slightly as he wrapped his elbow around Yunho’s, slowing his pace. “And if you don’t want me to ask about your supposed early morning acid trip, I’ll keep my mouth shut!” Yunho’s face morphed into confusion, rigid at the contact but a nice enough person to not shove the innocent boy off.

“I-I’m not a tourist,” Yunho confessed, eyes pleading for the blonde boy to let go. Instead, the boy held tighter, eyes widening in surprise.

“Oh! I’m sorry- I thought, you know, nevermind. You look hurt, anyway, you can barely walk! I can bring you to one of my friends down on Gower, he’s good at this sort of, medical stuff, you know? Or-” the young man paused abruptly as he observed Yunho’s face. The latter recoiled, hands clumsily denying the man’s suggestions. “I’m doing it again. I’m sorry- I’ve been taking this new thing, they call it Blitz in east Hollywood, where I get it-” Yunho felt his heart stop. The boy looked over in curiosity. “What? You’ve done it too?”

“What did you say you do?” Yunho whispered, almost in denial. The man looked just as confused.

“Uh, Blitz? My dealer calls it that, at least, he says in other areas it’s known as other names. I’m not addicted- well, no. I’m not, at least not yet. But it’s cheaper than some other stuff out there, so might as well, am I right? Looks like you took some serious shit, though.” Yunho stood still, formulating a way to dig into this man’s life without giving away anything to him. It was dangerous to involve humans with Aurora, in any form or way, hence why he was so thrown-off by the sight of Blitz on the streets of Hollywood. As far as Yunho was concerned, it was only being sold in Miami by Hongjoong and his gang, too far and too crazy a region for him to be in any way obligated to go and help prevent it. 

Either way, getting normals hooked on any hallucinogen that goes to Aurora was a highly-illegal and _bad_ idea that even as a middle man, Yunho did not support. The kid looked no more that 22, and was already addicted to Blitz? 

“I- I’ve taken it, a- a couple times. Couldn’t take it though. Too strong,” Yunho lied through his teeth, watching as the man’s face lit up. Granted, Yunho wasn’t the greatest liar, but the kid seemed to be easily persuaded if he was hooked to diobrilgyl. Either way, the blonde kid bit the lie like a lollipop.

“Really! I haven’t heard of a lot of users, except in weird spots like Wyoming, which I’m not convinced actually exists,” the boy excitedly explained, hands waving about in a frenzy. A couple walking by eyed the blood on Yunho and the man not-so-subtly, and the blonde quick to flip them off. Yunho laughed silently, Wyoming was the headquarters of Aurora, too remote and foreign for any sort of government official to be suspicious. “It’s really strong, but maybe that’s why I like it. All the other shit is too weak, especially for the price. I can get a kick out of a really small dose, and I’m getting it for like, a really low price. I’ll recommend my dealer, if you want.” 

Yunho shook his head in vehement disgust. He scraped his boot against the pavement and started to thing long-term plans. This man was important, could be used as bait and/or lure for both Seonghwa and Hongjoong, and seemed easy enough to manipulate. On the other hand, would he really take joy into hurting a boy so innocent and pure? Yunho decided he didn’t care.

“It’s okay, I’ve had my fair share of it. Say, can you accompany me back to my apartment? I’m sorry, it’s just that I don’t know if my legs work well enough to get me up my stairs,” Yunho asked, puppy-eyeing the boy until he smiled, crescents reappearing where his eyes used to live.

“Of course! I’m basically free all day, anyway. So, what’s your name?” the boy explained. Yunho grinned, unlacing his elbow from the blonde’s and forcing his legs to move again. Slow steps.

“Yunho, what about you?” Yunho asked, chuckling when the boy started to skip by his side, easily gaining pace on him.

“San. Choi San. Like mountain, y’know, because mountain is San in Korean,” the boy bragged, raising an eyebrow at Yunho’s face of disbelief. “What? I’m great, mountains are great.” 

“You’d get along really well with someone I know,” Yunho trailed off, panic bubbling in his throat when he remembered the very person. _Wooyoung._ “Fuck, we need to get back there, fast.” San sensed the urgency in his voice, and without a hitch, picked up Yunho and began to run, fast. “Holy shit-” 

“I’m Naruto running, hold on,” San explained. Yunho gasped as San began to pick up his pace, arms streaming behind him in true ninja form. Yunho had certainly experienced bizzare happenings in Hollywood, but nothing of the like of Choi San. He lurched forward, arms winding around San’s neck as he pushed bewildered strangers off the sidewalk. “Make room, I have an injured patient!” he screamed, pausing in the middle of the pavement in slight confusion. “Wait, where even is your apartment?” Yunho froze, was it smart to give away his and Wooyoung’s residency to a stranger? No. 

“It’s the big white building on Hollywood and Wilcox, looks like s’ been shut down for years,” Yunho panted, arms rapidly losing strength as San sped on. The man made a sound of affirmation, whether good or bad.

“I don’t know directions very well, but I think I’m going the right way,” San said, a little too happily, speeding on. It wasn’t the most safe or legal way of making their way down Hollywood blvd, but if Yunho was concerned about something being legal he was probably insane. 

As soon as San’s foot hit Barbara Whiting’s star, he fell, exhausted. Yunho looked up in surprise, they were already there. Apparently his abilities to walk in real time whilst in the slipstream weren’t as strong as he thought. “Fuck, now you need to carry me,” San gasped, falling to the ground in an old shakespearean style, hands outstretched as his hands instinctevely cycled through Jutsu handseals. Yunho lost count after Tora and Hitsuji.

“Well, thanks,” Yunho said awkwardly, attempting to shake San’s hands but failing when the blonde started forming Saru. “I’m sorry for causing you all this trouble.”

“You’re not going to invite me in for some tea or something?” San asked, pout irresistible and hands reverting back to their normal position by his sides, on the ground. Laying on Hollywood pavement was probably not the best of the kid’s decisions, but by God, he took Blitz, there wasn’t much more he could do.

“I- um, sure, you can come in,” Yunho hesitated. San didn’t seem the least bit threatening, despite his addiction to diobrilgyl. The kid lit up, scrambling to get off the floor.

“Thank god, I’m starving. Sorry, I have this habit, I invite myself everywhere,” San giggled out, skipping up the steps to Yunho’s apartment. “What floor are you on?”

“Two,” Yunho called, legs crumbling as they slowly made their way up the deteriorating staircase that was covered in ominous liquids (probably him on his way down hours prior) and graffiti. “Number 28.” 

San screamed when he reached the apartment, knocking on the door loudly. Yunho’s heart skipped a beat, how was he going to explain a bloodied, vomit-covered, unconscious Wooyoung? Not very well, he supposed. He still felt the eyes on him, beady, red, unlike the rat, more like Hongjoong. The name sent chills down his back, vibrating through his toes as they bent on the concrete staircase.

To his surprise, by the time he arrived at his door with San, Wooyoung opened the door in confusion with a towel ruffling through his damp gray hair, singlet loosely hanging off his narrow yet well built frame.

“You don’t have to knock, Yunh-” Wooyoung’s voice stopped as his eyes widened at the sight of San, who also looked mildly surprised. “Um-” Yunho awkwardly chuckled as he not-so-nicely shoved Wooyoung out of the doorframe and invited San inside.

“That’s my roommate, Wooyoung. Don’t worry about him, he won’t bother you if you don’t bother him,” Yunho rushed, pulling San in before Wooyoung could get a good look at the boy. If there was one thing Yunho swore to never do, it was to get Wooyoung remotely interested in a normal, pure, boy that had a future. A future that Yunho was likely to destroy. “Wooyoung, this is San. He’s here for some tea.” 

San whined uncomfortably when he was torn away from Wooyoung’s stare, following Yunho into the broken-down studio. “Sorry, it’s not the nicest of places. Also, tea isn’t available, we don’t have hot water,” Yunho explained shamefully, head refusing to meet Wooyoung’s disoriented expression and large gestures. _What the hell are you doing? Who is he? What the fuck? I-_ Yunho blinked away his peripheral vision of Wooyoung by the door to focus on San, who was smiling brightly.

“Oh, I was just joking! I just wanted to make sure you got home safely, you’re really bleeding. I was just going to say, I have the same sort of reaction after I take Blitz. Really fucked up shit, but man, does it feel good,” San said happily, eliciting a sharp breath from Yunho as he locked eyes with Wooyoung. Wooyoung’s face morphed into horror, and Yunho could only imagine that was exactly what his face looked like when San first saw him too. “Sorry- talking too much again, must be the drugs,” San giggled, twirling around elegantly to face Wooyoung. “I’m San! Like the mountains. I met Yunho outside after I think he had a _wicked_ acid trip. What’s your name?” Wooyoung sputtered, eyes frantically signalling Yunho to help him.

“Uhm-” 

“San, I think it’s time for you to go. Wooyoung and I have to go to Target in a few,” Yunho lied, taking advantage of San’s overall accepting personality. As suspected, the blonde ran his hand through his hair and showed his crescent eyes again. Yunho pretended he didn’t hear Wooyoung choke on his spit in the background.

“Oh- Okay! Well, I guess that’s fine. It’s been nice meeting you, I’m around here a lot so seek me out if you need any help!” San said giddily, skipping out of the room and waving childishly at Wooyoung, who winced. Yunho gradually realized that San appeared to be very high, even though he had scolded the idea of getting high so early. He also realized that San was most likely high on Blitz.

“San- are- are you taking Blitz right now?” Yunho asked hesitantly. San’s eyes blew open, but he cackled, stopping in his tracks as Wooyoung eyed him in disbelief.

“Oh, I guess you caught me! I repeat, I am _not_ addicted. Just needed a kick today, don’t we all? I can contain it, though, and I did, when you first met me, I was good right? Just feel more comfortable with druggies, I guess…” San mumbled, swaying back and forth, Yunho’s uncomfortable scale rising by the double-digits. “Well, I’m going now!” 

Yunho’s jaw fell open in stupor as the blonde walked out of the room, San’s face modifying itself back to the calm demeanor he at first saw on the gum-painted sidewalk. His hands shook as he slowly sat down onto Wooyoung’s bed, eyeing the clean sheets. Wooyoung must have had a quick trip, and a quick slipstream experience, because he was back in record time. 

“What the fuck was that?” Wooyoung hissed, sliding over to lock and bolt the door before San could change his mind. “Seriously, what the _fuck_ , Yunho. That is not what I want to see after a trip to Aurora-” Yunho rolled his eyes as he laid back onto Wooyoung’s bed, comfortably kicking off his boots and lifting his feet onto the bedframe. “Y-You can’t just bring strangers into here, Yunho! It’s dangerous, you know what I’m doing nowadays.” 

“He’s not going to do anything, Woo, relax. Plus, if anything, he’s stuck in the slipstream, and he won’t remember any of this in the next five hours,” Yunho said nonchalantly, slipping his hands underneath Wooyoung’s pillow to find the cool spot. The younger looked traumatized.

“So it’s true. He’s really taking Blitz? What sort of freak does that?” Wooyoung asked, walking over carefully to match Yunho’s height, splaying himself out on their carpet. He apparently, was not afraid of their rat friend anymore. “Plus, where were you? I got out a couple hours ago and you weren’t here.”

Yunho awkwardly shifted away from Wooyoung’s intense stare, focusing on their small window that led out onto the street. A shiver ran down his spine as he saw that glint of red hair follow a blonde-haired kid with a white shirt down the street, chilling smirk raised as he struck his hand out to- 

Yunho blinked, red molding into the blinking cars and thin body forming a chrome pole overcrowded with missing dog and cat posters. He gulped, turning to face Wooyoung again.

“I fell into it again, I guess. Hongjoong’s been saving some really strong stuff. About San- I don’t know, either he’s a real ignorant addict, or he’s just a regular insane crackhead. Either way, I wouldn’t get attached, he looks like he’s going to be gone in a couple of months,” Yunho said, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at Wooyoung’s dread-filled features.

“Y-You can’t just say that about someone’s life! He’s still a _person,_ Yunho,” Wooyoung croaked, staring down Yunho until he felt guilt build up in his stomach. “I know we take things like life and death lightly- us- you know, agents, but he’s a regular person, Yunho. Are you going to let him ruin his life with Blitz?”

Yunho shrugged, unfurling himself from Wooyoung’s sheets to prevent another washing of the linens. His arm was still bleeding, but pain was nothing but a nuisance, and Yunho had much bigger worries. Example one, Wooyoung’s feelings.

“I don’t know him, Yunho. He’s just an addict in Hollywood we’re probably never going to see again. What have I told you about getting attached?” Yunho chided. Wooyoung’s eyebrows furrowed, offended.

“When has this ever been about me getting attached? This is about me being worried for someone doing something dangerous, because that’s what humans do, we worry for each other. I’m not going to be a psychopath and watch someone destroy themselves in front of me if I can’t help it,” Wooyoung retorted, huffing on the floor and picking at his fingernails loosely. “I don’t know him. I don’t know if I want to know him. But I want to help. Isn’t that what we all want to do in some way?” 

Yunho didn’t know if he was ready for such a theoretical conversation with Wooyoung, much less at nine in the morning whilst he was bleeding profusely. But the kid looked wrecked, confused, livid, and Yunho had promised himself to never let him feel that way.

“I- I understand, Wooyoung. But we can’t save everything, and San, San’s beyond saving. You saw him, he’s addicted. Addicted to Blitz. Not even _Hongjoong_ is addicted to that shit,” Yunho weakly defended, voice straining as Wooyoung only huffed louder.

“That’s such a stupid defense! Why are you making me feel bad for wanting to _help_?” Wooyoung barked, standing up and brushing off crumbs from his bare legs. Yunho shivered as the moving fan hit him, sending waves of breeze up and around his open wound. 

“He’s a regular, Wooyoung. We can’t get him caught up in Aurora.” Wooyoung made a weird strangled sound, something between immense fury and an inability to form the right words.

“So we won’t! Not everything has to be because of Aurora, Yunho. Can’t we live like regulars while we’re in L.A. and take care of the kid?” Wooyoung demanded, storming towards the bathroom to grab his clean pants and shirt. “I- I just want to help someone, Yunho. I don’t want him, San, to get addicted to Aurora like us. I want him to be happy. Is that too much to try for?” 

Yunho was torn between comforting Wooyoung and crushing his dreams. He was definitely better at one rather than the other, but the situation was dire, especially since Wooyoung had already had an emotional outbreak just hours before. 

This was what he was warning himself about, Wooyoung and his emotions. Wooyoung still had hope for his future, he still had aspirations and dreams and wishes, and it pained Yunho to watch Wooyoung slowly fall apart as he realized nothing, nothing would ever come true. Because in the end, Aurora was the only thing they had, the only constant in their lives.

Wooyoung was a whirlwind, dangerous, wreckless, and yet scarily effective. It had been years since Aurora had seen such an intellectual and quick-minded agent, someone so young and bright that could help her and her ultimate goal. Wooyoung wasn’t like the others, he was credible, valuable, because he still held the human morals that all the rest, like Yunho, had forgotten about.

Yunho suspected it was why he hated Seonghwa so much, even more than Hongjoong. To Wooyoung (and most of the agent population), Hongjoong was crazy. Disgusting, deranged, demented. An abomination of Aurora’s creation. But he had _emotions._ He had drive and goals and that was something Wooyoung could respect, even if they were filled with death, destruction, and everything else nice.

Seonghwa, however, was void of emotions. The man had blocked himself off from the pleasures and pains of the world, dead to the Earth and cold to Aurora. It made Wooyoung hate him, so much, how Seonghwa didn’t _care_ , he never did, and he never would. He was blank, he had no future, no past, no present, he didn’t live to exist, he lived to please Aurora. It was always like that, and it would always be like that. Seonghwa was different, he was strange, fearless in some ways, fearful in others.

Wooyoung liked to call Seonghwa a coward. Too afraid to face the overwhelming surges of emotions in the real world, confiding in Aurora as she shielded him, too broken to face the slipstream and his past memories Yunho could only imagine were traumatic. Many looked up to Seonghwa, to his ability to disconnect his emotions from reality and focus on Aurora only, an agents dream. Yunho in some ways, did admire Seonghwa. The man was smart, even with his handicaps, and always had been. 

He had only seen Seonghwa out of Aurora once, years back, a trip to Seattle gone terribly wrong. Yunho only caught a glimpse, black hair flashing by in panic as he ran to someone, someone with red hair and a red pinky that sparkled in the sunlight. It was terrifying, Seonghwa as a person, Seonghwa as a real, breathing, feeling human, it didn’t add up. 

Ever since that day, no one had reported a sighting of Seonghwa out of Aurora. The man was busied, a new leader of the League of Global Interdimensional Sanctuary, or LGI, but was barely seen outside of his office, hunched over, black-brimmed hat hanging low over his blonde hair.

To his best recollection, Wooyoung had never even formally met Seonghwa. Seonghwa was too busy, too lost, barely making time for Yunho’s swift trips in and out of Aurora. It was another one of the man’s many mysteries, the rumors that went around the agent unions, careless whispers bending into ruthless schemes. Seonghwa was dead, he was hiding out under a secret identity, his body was forever discorporated and lost into the slipstream. Yunho didn’t like to humor the evidenceless theories. Seonghwa was more than a rumor, more than a shell, he knew that, he had to accept it. Because Yunho still saw the man with the red hair and the red rimmed pinky that smiled at him every second of the day.

Yunho’s head snapped up when he heard Wooyoung slowly walk out of the bathroom, face flushed with water and newly clothed in a regular pair of jeans and a button-up, undone at the top. He wordlessly dropped his old clothes in their hamper, and backed up against Yunho’s bedframe, eyes watching the dirty window.

“I’m sorry,” Wooyoung sniffled, rubbing water out of his red eyes and smiling hesitantly up at Yunho on the bed. “I know you’re just trying to keep us safe n’ all. I get it.” Yunho felt a smile creep up onto his face, hands habitually reaching out for Wooyoung. The boy followed obediently, getting up and sitting under Yunho on the carpet, back against his bed, sighing softly when Yunho’s hands started to ruffle through his freshly-washed hair. 

“It’s okay, I’m not mad,” Yunho whispered, hands tugging lightly at the locks until Wooyoung whined for him to stop. He paused while his fingers were still entangled in Wooyoung’s hair, biting his tongue harshly. “I-I’m sorry we have to live like this. I really am,” 

Wooyoung shook his head rapidly. “It’s not your fault, Yunho, it never was. Plus, I’m glad I have someone to stop me from doing the stupid shit I always think about.” Yunho choked out a watery laugh, his hands tightening into Wooyoung’s hair much to the younger’s protest.

It wasn’t hard to _feel_ with Wooyoung, the kid had something in him, something special and unique Yunho was going to protect for as long as possible. Yunho carefully leant his elbows on Wooyoung’s broad shoulders, weight leaning onto the boy and head balanced atop the head of gray hair.

“I don’t blame you, Woo, it’s hard to watch people suffer a-at first,” Yunho noted, stuttering as he recalled his lack of emotions for said blonde boy. The gurgle of a stomach, they couldn’t tell which, interrupted the serene quiet of their room, save the sirens from the street and flickering fan. “We should eat something.” 

Wooyoung hummed quietly, extending his legs out of their crossed position and stretching his toes with a groan. Yunho watched silently, taking his own time to realize the cramps growing in his shoulders and thighs.

“You smell. Like, really bad. Take a shower, I’ll get something from the pizza place next door- what’s it’s name- anyway, yeah,” Wooyoung said, scrunching his nose to exaggerate Yunho’s stench. Yunho groaned as Wooyoung got up, his weight unbalanced and teetering over the bed’s edge. 

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Yunho mumbled, looking down at his disgusting set of clothes, covered in blood, dirt, and the vomit from his last trip to Aurora. It was very bad. Wooyoung seemed to agree with his intuition, based on his deadpan stare and snap of impatient fingers.

“You know the answer, Yunho. I’ll be back in a bit,” Wooyoung yelled, running out the door with a crumpled twenty from his pocket and his phone hanging precariously by it’s popsocket. Yunho waved, getting up slowly to ease his joints and walk to the shower.

Wooyoung had taken the time to half-hazardly clean the blood and vomit splatters off of the shower walls, much to Yunho’s delight, and had even refilled his dandruff shampoo bottle. The water was cold, as usual, hot water was too expensive and overrated, but the constant stream of water caught him by surprise. Either Wooyoung had gotten the water pressure fixed, or some miracle in heaven had given Yunho a working showerhead.

As soon as he was about to get down on his knees in gratitude, the water started to harden and he could practically feel the minerals soaking into his skin, defeated chemicals that were ‘supposed’ to work sitting around the drain mocking his despair. Yunho sighed, rubbing the shampoo in his hair as quickly as possible, mouth and eyes clamped shut to prevent the clammy-water from getting into any of the holes in his face.

These were the times, the times when Yunho was too preoccupied with ‘humanly’ problems, that he forgot to look for Hongjoong, Hongjoong in the shadows, Hongjoong in the drain, Hongjoong in the air. He knew it was fake, it was juvenile, really, to be afraid of something that didn’t really exist. But to his credit, the last experience Yunho had with said red-head was not pleasant, and he had extended trauma after that episode.

Yunho knew he was there, still watching, grin atop his otherwise innocent looking face, bag of powder precariously balanced atop his elegant (small) fingers. He would have to visit Hongjoong again, soon, to pick up another shipment he was supposed to send to Beijing to have replicated.

Yunho would be dead if Hongjoong ever found out he wasn’t giving those shipments to Beijing. To his surprise, Hongjoong hadn’t caught on immediately, or if he had, he’d been prolonging the suspense, because there he still was, and there Seonghwa still was, alive and ready to receive.

Despite Yunho’s hatred for organized crime and gangs, he had gotten himself caught up in the notorious Seonghwa-Hongjoong feud that he had unluckily chosen sides in. Both. Well, technically Seonghwa, but he was working for Hongjoong at the same time to supply the blonde with samples of illegal diobrilgyl. He didn’t like to talk about it, it was unfortunate for him and he’d rather not have joined at all. Yunho almost would rather choose Wooyoung’s strange sideline mafia business over this confusing clash of law and, well, law breaking.

He doubted that Hongjoong ‘trusted’ him, the man was far too cunning and tactical to trust anyone other than for his own personal gain, much less because Yunho was doing a favor to him. Wooyoung had pestered Yunho repeatedly to just tell Hongjoong he was ‘out’ of the deal, but Wooyoung was idealistic, and Hongjoong had a very large gun that could kill Yunho in a very short amount of time.

Yunho winced as a small amount of sickly-smelling shampoo lodged into his eye, the burning sensation quickly dissipating as he stuck his open eye under the hard water. It would surely be red and angry by the next morning, lymestone and open-orifices never really mixed that well. His hands hurried to wash the rest of his body, barely noting the alarming amount of blood that was collecting by the drain. His skin, when clean, was paler than most, Aurora’s influence, but was stained brown and red with dried blood and scabs. His hair toned a warm brown that was golden in the sunshine, when he could catch it.

The water stopped suddenly, signalling the end of his shower. Yunho stepped out cautiously, grabbing a spare towel and quickly ‘drying’ himself off, leaving splatters of water all over the bathroom. He refused to tend to his wounds more than a quick glance, they weren’t grave and if anything they would scab in a few hours. His fingernails stung from blunt pressure as they pressed to put on his shirt and pants, nothing more than sweatpants and a random t-shirt from the depths of his and Wooyoung’s closet, hastily shaking his hair like a dog to release any extra water caught in his locks.

The sickly midday light brought in by a dirtied window blocked by a large brick building casted square shadows on the bathroom, and Yunho stepped around them like some sort of game. He would never admit to Wooyoung, who had confessed that he did the exact game, that he always did the same. He preferred not to glance at his complexion, it was beyond-help and sunken in, dried skin flaking off in places he didn’t even know it could. His eyes were red from constant biting and his under eyes left much to be desired. He wasn’t like Wooyoung, Wooyoung still cared about his face, bottles of toner and powder precariously placed on his side of the sink. 

Yunho took a second glance at the red cap atop Wooyoung’s bottle of eye cream, shaking his head in distress, stray droplets falling on the cracking porcelain. He walked away, slowly, eyes refusing to focus on the cap again, feet leading him naturally back to his bed, which Wooyoung had cleaned while he was away. His phone was charging on their shared night table, blinking in happiness as it was fully charged. Yunho smiled softly at his background, him and Wooyoung right after their first official mission together. He was younger, still had the plump bags under his eyes and a teasing smile as he messed up Wooyoung’s then black hair. Wooyoung had a bright grin atop his face, holding a bag of diobriglyl and a large mess of wires and cables.

His smile faltered as the screen turned off, his own reflection bouncing back at him against the black reflective screen. He blinked, unplugging his phone and taking it with him to his bed. Without second thought, his thumb tapped the home button twice, immediately scrolling to his messages and lazily scrolling through his list of blinking notifications. He stopped at a name that seemed to glow a hazy red. _Kim Hongjoong. One new notification_ . The blue dot next to his iconless profile photo seemed to mock Yunho as he hesitantly read the preview. _New shipment. Five, to..._ His finger slipped in anxiety, trembling as he finally pressed the name, the short message relieving his stress. _New shipment. Five, tomorrow. Don’t be late, we have events to discuss._

Yunho’s breath stopped, his finger halting above the phone, unable to respond. _Events to discuss_. He refused to partake in his anxieties. It was impossible for Hongjoong to know about his business with Seonghwa, they had been careful and Seonghwa was far too tactical to give away their location that easily- unless. Unless Hongjoong had tapped into their conversation in Aurora, but it was impossible, Hongjoong had much bigger things to think about than a minor agent like Yunho, right? Hongjoong’s limited knowledge on him didn’t stretch beyond their run-ins at various bars across the country ages before (which Yunho would very much like to forget), and was likely to be clouded with personal experience (even if they were very present and clear to Yunho).

And besides, he _did_ have to go to Hongjoong to discuss the whole plan on discorporating Seonghwa out of Aurora, so it was most likely that scheme. Yunho believed his faithful conscience anyway, refusing to answer Hongjoong’s short and snippy message.

He flinched as Wooyoung barged into the room, arms full with a box of steaming pizza and mouth preoccupied with holding his phone and receipt. The boy mumbled out an incoherent sentence, kicking the door shut with his foot and eyeing it to make sure it locked. Yunho took the box from Wooyoung’s hands, opening it to review the toppings he had chosen. Of course, Wooyoung being a child, had chosen no toppings for his half, and a plethora of colorful addons for Yunhos. His phone was forgotten, left on his bed as he eagerly searched for leftover paper plates in their studio, Wooyoung walking to the bathroom to wash his hands, throwing the receipt in the trash on his way.

Yunho almost went to check the price, but it was pointless, either way Wooyoung had spent the money and there was no going back. He trusted that the boy hadn’t spent more than their profit off of the last work they’d had, since Seonghwa had forgotten, or just decided to not give Yunho money for his work. It wasn’t unlike the blonde to do so, however, the man was elusive and Yunho was weak enough to fall for his games, every time.

“Why is my eye cream opened? Are you finally getting into skincare?” Yunho’s body went rigid as Wooyoung eyed him from the bathroom. He didn’t remember even _touching_ the red-capped bottle, so much as opening it. His body shivered voluntarily.

“I- No. I don’t know,” Yunho denied. His warm brown hair fell into his eyes, still damp from his shower, and shielded Wooyoung from prying any further. “Maybe you left it open.”

Wooyoung seemed rightly suspicious, but only shrugged and capped the cream with a twist. Yunho shuddered and turned his attention to the pizza in front of him. The younger had forgotten to get rid of mushrooms on his pizza, the brown ugly pieces decorating his otherwise pristine slice. He scrunched his nose in distaste, picking each one off and tossing in somewhere near the trashcan. Most of them missed.

Wooyoung reappeared from the bathroom a minute later, taking the box from Yunho’s hands and forgoing a plate, eating the slice like a sandwich while he sat on his bed.

“Hey, I was thinking, because we’re free tomorrow, we should binge watch Harry Potter again, y’know, like old times,” Wooyoung commented offhandedly, waving his pizza around in the air as he searched through his phone for some Netflix show. Yunho sighed, gulping down his slice like it was water on a hot, summer day.

“I-I can’t. I have a job,” Yunho croaked, pushing his phone subtly under his sheets and ignoring the new messages. Wooyoung pouted his lips cutely, giving Yunho obvious puppy eyes.

“You _always_ have a job. It’s that Hongjoong thing isn’t it,” Wooyoung accused, pointing a childish finger at Yunho’s grease-covered lips. He blew out a deep breath, body folding into itself and eyes losing the glitter. “It’s fine, I have gigs, anyway.”

Yunho felt guilt catch in his throat, choking the bits of cheese and pepper stuck in his chewing mouth. 

“N-no. It’s for Hongjoong, but it’s not about his scheme. Just another shipment,” Yunho helpfully supplied, gazing into Wooyoung’s downcast eyes and hoping to see a bit of hope spring into them. They remained blank.

“That you’re going to intercept and send to Seonghwa and risk your life for, like every other time? Yeah, totally normal,” Wooyoung said bitterly, scraping at his fingernails. He rummaged through the box, grabbing another plain slice and shoving it into his mouth, forgetting the half slice he already had on his plate. No, he didn’t forget, Wooyoung was just a heathen that didn’t like crust. “I don’t get how you can normalize life and death, Yunho.” 

“I don’t know either, Wooyoung. It’s just what I do. This’ll be quick, only a couple hours. Maybe we can start the first few when I get back,” Yunho proposed, wiping the crumbs off his phone screen and attempting to unlock it with his greasy fingers. Thankfully, Wooyoung had helped him set up face-recognition a few weeks ago and it immediately unlocked. He didn’t know why he unlocked it, but his finger immediately swept to Hongjoong’s message again. Something between anxiety and pure (rational) fear crept up his spine and made him wince.

There was no chance Hongjoong would know about Seonghwa and him, right? If anything, Yunho and Seonghwa had been too careful. They had taken every possible precaution to prevent Hongjoong or any of his minions from even seeing them in Aurora, much less together. In hindsight, it may have been disorienting to not see Seonghwa in Aurora, but surely not to the point Hongjoong would find out.

Yunho’s head snapped around to look for the telltale sign of red, but surprisingly, he couldn’t find a single thing. Wooyoung’s face cream cap was blue, a deep navy that had a glossy sheen to it. His face heated up in embarrassment, it was never red in the first place.

“Okay,” Wooyoung whispered, cheeks full of pizza like a chipmunk, gray hair masking his drooping facial features. “Only if you want too, though.” Yunho smiled warmly, getting off his bed and walking over to ruffle Wooyoung’s hair. The younger purred like a satisfied cat in response tilting his head to the right to allow Yunho more area to cover. “I threw out that rat, by the way.” Yunho’s eyebrows heightened.

“How? I thought you were afraid of them?” Yunho asked in disbelief, hands tightening in the gray hair in his normal fashion as he imagined Wooyoung running around the studio in unblemished terror as he was chased by a miniscule gray rat. It couldn’t have been the actual scenario, the studio was looking nicer than he left it.

“It was easy,” Wooyoung bluffed, ears reddening as he started to lie. “I just caught it and threw it out, easy as that.” Yunho didn’t believe him, but he gave him the benefit of the doubt. Wooyoung smiled toothily, eyes scrunching up at the corners and forehead crinkling. “I’ve never been afraid of a rodent in my life.”

Yunho let out an obnoxious laugh, releasing Wooyoung’s scalp to flop down on his bed next to said boy. They both grinned at each other, one in fake-bravery and the other in doubt. Yunho caught the brown suitcase under his bed tinge a shade of red, and his hands started to shake. Wooyoung immediately noticed it, grabbing his hands as he stared up at the man in confusion. “Why are you shaking?”

“R-red,” Yunho trembled, shaking his head vigorously to relieve his vision. He wasn’t even on diobriglyl, the drug had to have worn off hours earlier, and yet he still hallucinated. Something about Hongjoong and the side-effects to his drugs. Wooyoung seemed perplexed and conflicted, debating whether to crack a joke or help Yunho. “S’ fine, keep talking about something else, I’ll forget about it.” Wooyoung thought for a moment.

“Uh… I saw Yeosang on my mission,” Wooyoung said, looking up at Yunho for confirmation. Yunho’s eyes scrunched up, displeasure written all over his face. He wondered why it was so easy for him and Wooyoung to go from happy one second, to angry another, to sad the final.

“Not about Aurora, something else.” Wooyoung huffed, he didn’t know much outside of Aurora. He was an agent, for god’s sake, not a businessperson.

“Um- I- I asked the guy at the pizza place for no mushrooms but he put them on, I’m sorry,” Wooyoung tried, eyeing the said pizza that still had half its slices left. “He even charged me more than usual, I’m convinced he’s new.” Yunho sighed in relief as the suitcase started to fade its vibrant hue, returning to the boring brown he’d bought it in when he left for college. He didn’t even know what Wooyoung was talking about, something about pizza and money, but it didn’t matter, _he_ was gone. Finally.

“S’ gone. Thanks, Woo,” Yunho said brightly, glancing over at his friend who seemed overly-concerned. His hand was protectively holding Yunho’s scraped nailpolish replaced with a gorgeous violet color.

“I don’t even know what I did, Yunho, but I won’t pry,” Wooyoung deadpanned, drawing small circles on Yunho’s palm. It was comforting in a weird way, the pattern Wooyoung drew on his skin over and over again until it felt routine. They relaxed into the atmosphere, Yunho grabbing Wooyoung’s extra crust and shoving it into his mouth. He didn’t know how Wooyoung couldn’t appreciate the best, and most integral part of the pizza. “We fight too much.”

Yunho deeply regretted shoving that amount of dough into his mouth right before Wooyoung posed such a serious concern. His cheeks puffed out as he stared at the younger in surprise, motioning that he was still chewing, much to the other’s amusement. Wooyoung’s eyes glittered as he laughed, shoving Yunho’s shoulder lightly as the elder toppled over in an exaggerated fashion. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best choice, moving wildly whilst still swallowing, and it was proven when he choked on a big bite of crush and remaining sauce. 

“I mess up too much,” Yunho finally made out through bits of pizza crust, spraying Wooyoung with crumbs. Wooyoung didn’t seem hesitant to agree, making rough sounds of confirmation with his throat. “And you’re too emotional,” Yunho teased, shoving Wooyoung back with his sharp elbow. 

“I’ll admit it,” Wooyoung said slyly, taking a moment to reach into the pizza box to grab another boring slice of cheese. Yunho eyed the plain slice in distaste, disgusted at the way Wooyoung obnoxiously smacked his lips as he ate it, grease covering his lips and making them shine.

“You’re gross,” Yunho said, wincing as Wooyoung used his bedsheet to wipe the excess sauce and grease off of his face, the corner covered in a wet orangey substance. Wooyoung grinned toothily, showing off the lovely bits of chewed pizza in his mouth. “Extremely gross,’ Yunho continued, hinting Wooyoung to shut his mouth and chew silently. 

If anything, Wooyoung just smacked louder, stray bits of cheese flying out of his mouth and sending themselves onto the carpet. Yunho couldn’t bear to even look at his friend, turning away in abhorrence to stare at the wall Wooyoung had covered in polaroids. Dismayed at the lack of attention, Wooyoung stopped chewing quite so loudly and returned to placidly consuming his slice. 

Yunho debated whether seeing Wooyoung eat that slice like a lollipop was better than being killed by Hongjoong’s mafia gang. He decided that whilst being murdered by Hongjoong was not on his bucket list, Wooyoung sucking the cheese off of his already disgusting pizza would be more likely to show up in the slipstream as ‘Most Traumatic Memory’ since his parents forgot him at Target sixteen years ago.

“You’re no fun,” Wooyoung snickered, throat coated in a thin layer of pizza grease and hands smearing a collection of spit and cheese grease all over his sheets, and almost, Yunho’s pants, before he jumped off of the bed, hollering.

“Jesus Christ, Wooyoung, did your parents never teach you manners?” Yunho said incredulously, nauseated from the mere sight of his sticky, vile fingers. Wooyoung giggled, tossing his crust onto his bed and running to the bathroom to wash his hands. Yunho watched him the entire way, deadly glare made apparent as Wooyoung not even half-guiltily flounced his way to the sink. 

Yunho didn’t even feel like consuming the rest of his half anymore, too floored by the revelation that Wooyoung ate pizza like a _dog,_ too grossed-out to even stare at the pools of grease under where their pizza once sat. He was glad that Wooyoung made light of the serious topic of their fights, he knew it wasn’t healthy for them, but it was hard for him to open up about his lack of compassion, and it was difficult for Wooyoung to talk about his excess of emotion. 

It would be a lie if Yunho didn’t feel at least a little bit offended about how Wooyoung pried into all his missions. He hadn’t recalled a time he’d ever even _mentioned_ one of Wooyoung’s projects, no matter how sketchy they sounded, whether that was him being a bad friend or a good one, he couldn’t differentiate. Either way, Wooyoung didn’t have that much of a right to look into what Yunho was doing and label it dangerous, considering he was the one doing all the gang business. Yunho was just doing the best he could at his level of expertise, carrying out missions that he felt he was fairly confident in, until Wooyoung came along to beat him down.

Now, it wasn’t to say he didn’t like Wooyoung. In fact, it was the complete opposite, Wooyoung was his other half, he didn’t know what he would do without him. Rather, it was more of a pet peeve about living with said other half, no matter how close they would be, it would always persist. Yunho was convinced this happened with every sort of relationship, no matter what, there is and always is something about the other person you just _can’t get_. He accepted it, but he wasn’t sure Wooyoung was in a place where he could agree with the statement as easily Yunho could.

And the conflict wasn’t something he was going to address Wooyoung about, not then or ever, it was too personal and too easily offensive to really be brought up over a slice of greasy pizza or after a trip to Aurora. It was a risky decision to leave such a heavy topic upon the hands of fate herself, especially when their entire world revolved around disclosure and evidence, but it was one Yunho was willing to risk to keep his and Wooyoung’s relationship sacred.

Wooyoung appeared less grease-stained and more put together from the bathroom, snarky grin still lining his lips and a bit more of a bounce to his step. Yunho pointedly ignored the way Wooyoung made snide hand formations at him, recognizably the one with the singular finger pointing upwards, tongue sticking out of his closed grin sneakily. He walked straight to his bed and sat next to Yunho, unintentionally sitting on the pizza he left on his sheets.

“Fuck-” Wooyoung cursed, black jeans stained with cheesy grease and day thoroughly ruined, as if it hadn’t already been. He did a weird dance around the room, Yunho viewed it as pointless, it wasn’t like the grease was going to magically dissipate off, but it was too amusing to stop. His steps were light around the studio as Wooyoung slowly turned around, inspecting the damage, which Yunho thought resembled a dog with floppy years, dark stains on gray fabric. He pouted, turning to Yunho with a crestfallen expression. “Do we have any detergent?”

“Check the bathroom,” Yunho shrugged, boring holes into Wooyoung’s. “Don’t you dare try to just ‘air dry’ those, walk three steps to the laundromat, you need the sunshine anyway.” Wooyoung scowled at the thought of outside, he had already walked all the way to get pizza.

“I’ll do it later, it’s only like two or something,” Wooyoung reasoned, picking up the pizza crust from his bed and tossing it (missing) near the trash can. Yunho glowered at him until he picked it up and threw it into the actual bin, grumbling about how it was ‘close enough’. Yunho rightfully believed that it was Wooyoung, and Wooyoung’s problem alone that the mice came into their studio, he was the one leaving half-eaten Lean Cuisines and Gogurts all over their room. “Speaking of which, I was telling you about how I saw Yeosang in Aurora a couple, hours ago, let’s say.” Yunho rolled his eyes, picking at his nails in disinterest. “Hey, he’s my friend.”

“He copped me out in front of Seonghwa for working with Hongjoong, I have a reason, not just blind hate, y’know?” Yunho hissed, eyes catching a flash of crimson stain his bedsheets before they promptly turned back to a nice cream color. “Plus, didn’t he fuck you over too?”

Wooyoung seemed bashful, ears reddening and teeth clenching. He opened his mouth several times only for it to close on its own accord, tongue running along the edges of his cheeks. Yunho didn’t like seeing Wooyoung caught up in ‘relationship’ problems with guys, whether it be agents or regulars, and judging by his expression, there was _definitely_ something there. 

Yunho didn’t have faith in Wooyoung to keep his emotions in check, but he at least trusted that idiot agent Yeosang with them. The kid was like a marble statue, just like Seonghwa, even more so, to an extent. His eyes looked positively _dead,_ which at that point was reasonable for Seonghwa, the guy had seen some stuff, but Yeosang was _new._ He had joined barely two years before, and yet he already looked dead to the world and everything he knew prior to Aurora. It was either Seonghwa’s impeccable teaching skills or Aurora’s irresistible influence that took him, and it was only a matter of time until Wooyoung was sucked into the lure too.

“Look, I know you have a problem with him, but he’s been good to me, ever since then. Plus, he’s given me some information in the database about Hongjoong and the elements of his synthetic diobrilgyl. I’m pretty sure you’re interested, regardless about how you feel about him,” Wooyoung said, raising an unconcerned eyebrow. The words piqued Yunho’s regard for Yeosang, giving Wooyoung a defeated glance.

“How d’you know he’s not lying?” Wooyoung looked taken aback by the reasoning. “You know Seonghwa trains all his agents to be terrific white liars.”

“He wo-wouldn’t lie to me!” Wooyoung weakly defended, hands waving about in a crazed matter, black stain on his jeans forgotten. Yunho fought the urge to smack some sense into the kid’s brain, it was too early in the day to deal with his shit. “We’ve known each other long enough!” 

“That’s not how business works around here, Woo. What’d he say about the diobrilgyl?” Wooyoung huffed, picking up one of his notebooks from the corner of his bed, next to his Bulbasaur pillow, and flipping to one of his more recently filled pages. No one could read Wooyoung’s handwriting, not even Yunho, it looked like a mix between hieroglyphics and doctor scribble. 

“Something about him using ergot, this fungus, to create lysergic acid. It’s not one of the main though, just used for the hallucinatory illusions. The main point was, Seonghwa and his team think Hongjoong’s melting down old circuit boards, from the late 90s, to get nickel oxide hydroxide and metallic cadmium. Apparently, he’s somehow connecting it to the slipstream to create the synthetic, I’m not quite sure. Either way, it’s extremely toxic and upon contact with anything can spontaneously combust. Which is why everyone’s confused, how and why the hell is _Hongjoong_ using it?” Wooyoung breathed out, panting at the end, basically passing out onto Yunho’s lap.

Yunho inhaled shakily, chemicals forming acute points in his brain. So for the last, day or so, he’d been tripping on nickel oxide hydroxide and metallic cadmium. _Shit._ Oh, if every single person in the universe hadn’t warned him about the extremely dangerous conditions of those two chemicals, especially put together, and if he hadn’t taken them in an extremely large dose. _Fuck Hongjoong._

“Well then. And you’re saying people are taking this? Unbeknownst?” Wooyoung nodded slowly, eyes filled with horror when a certain blonde-haired came into mind. “Oh god, what about that guy-”

“San?” Yunho cut Wooyoung’s preconceived rant/speech off with a harsh shoulder pat. “I told you he’s already gone. The kid’s addicted to toxic battery chemicals. There’s no saving him, Woo, I’m sorry. You saw what he was like,” he pointed out blandly. “Plus, didn’t you already connect this? You met Yeosang way before we saw San.”

“I’m stupid,” Wooyoung retorted, hands threading between each other and squeezing. “And Yeosang’s science-y words don’t stick in my brain. To be fair, nothing does.” Yunho chuckled in agreement, flicking at a loose thread on Wooyoung’s bed.

“So, you actually like, _like_ him?” Yunho asked bluntly, boring holes into Wooyoung’s bleached scalp. The younger went rigid, hands shaking as he continued to play with them. Yunho already had his confirmation before the kid could even speak up.

“I- I don’t know, what does it matter to you? ‘S not like you can actually do anything about it, anyway,” Wooyoung mumbled, body moving to face away from Yunho’s lap and nearly falling off the bed during the process. Yunho thought his body felt like a log, sturdy, yet definitely able to tip over at any point. He didn’t like the way Wooyoung’s painted nails were a dark hue of scarlet, and he didn’t like the way his eyes never met Yunho’s. “Stop prying.”

Yunho flustered, sputtering to receive a coherent response. Wooyoung was telling _him_ to stop prying? Yeah, like the kid didn’t barge in on every single eventful or non eventful situation of Yunho’s life, regardless or not of consent. 

“I don’t feel like arguing,” Yunho whispered hesitantly, picking at the loose threads on his shirt. “I just want you to be aware about what you’re getting into. Y’know, Seonghwa and all that.” He didn’t wait for Wooyoung’s counter, the kid hadn’t stomached a single word Yunho said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Yunho stood up hastily, brushing off his shirt cleanly and picking up his phone and keys from his nightstand. His hand trembled as he silenced his phone, glancing at the screen before powering it down and shoving it into his back pocket. Wooyoung watched from his bed, gray hair clouding his vision and making him look absolutely pitiful. 

Yunho’s hand met the doorknob, and he swung it open with vigor, walking out and slamming the door to ensure it closed properly. The cramped staircase lined with mysterious trash and liquid led him down to the open street, where the sun still streamed brightly and the tourists still screamed. His body shivered in response, delicately scanning his face with his fingertips to double-check for any large offensive wounds. Relieved when he found none, Yunho walked leisurely down the street, eyes scanning the various pawn shops and touristy locations. 

Nothing was out of the ordinary, nothing besides the red shoe in that shop across the street, which smiled at him menacingly. Yunho looked the other way sharply, breath caught in his throat as he continued on blindly. His paranoia of said man was too profound to be cast aside, it overtook his mind and led his conscious into the relentless manhunt for a man with a red pinky and black brimmed hat. 

Hongjoong was an actual concern, threat by then. He wasn’t just another client to work with, Hongjoong was beyond capable of catching Seonghwa and Yunho and doing unspeakable things to them. If anything, Seonghwa was doing the safe thing in keeping himself barricaded in Aurora, even if it was an unorthodox method. Yunho doubted he would ever be able to pull off such a feat, human interaction, as minimal as he had it, was important to him in small doses. In some ways, it kept him alive. In others, it made him feel even more dead to the current society than ever.

His foot hesitated on the gum-spotted ground when he recognized the place he first met San. He looked around, eyeing for any sight of blonde hair, which in hindsight, was a dumb idea. The kid probably got around the streets faster than anyone else, he was probably tripping in a McDonalds five miles away. Yunho’s brain pounded unusually, a telltale side effect of being off diobrilgyl for longer than usual. It wasn’t good to tap out of Aurora for long periods of time, he could be missing crucial details in the environment, but it was just so _tiring_. Even being half-conscious in the slipstream was a feat that took hours of preparation, ensuring that he was safe, and a strong enough resolve to not fall into Aurora’s false reality.

In his defense, the human body was never created to do such a feat in such a short amount of time. How easily some went in and out baffled him, Yunho guessed they had administered some sort of radiation poisoning to numb the pain, though he could never be sure. The more likelier event was just plain simple. Aurora agents were insane. At least, most of them, save for the few younger agents that still had intact brain cells. Yunho didn’t like to place himself on the scale, it was dehumanizing and destroyed any perceived vein of sensibility in his body.

Yunho barely noticed three kids skating down the sidewalk with bruised boards before they crashed into him, skidding his feet to the side and passively looking out of the corner of his eye, barely missing the crude finger signs they threw up. His body swayed as his right foot stepped into a dip of concrete, and he quickly hastened his pace, eager to continue thinking. He had no set destination, his feet would take him wherever. 

The overwhelming scent of cigarette smoke and marijuana remains barely caught Yunho’s attention, it was far too common to be anything worth his time, but the unfamiliar sight of blonde hair stopped him. San was sitting on the bare pavement, feet bare and chest exposed, white shirt crumpled in his right hand, his left working a new cigarette. The kid didn’t look up, too focused on a particular spot on the ground, where two ants worked to pick up a crumb of some sort. Yunho raised an eyebrow, debating whether to greet San or leave as quickly as possible.

It wasn’t smart to get involved with any sort of ‘normie’, much less a one that was somehow in compliance with Hongjoong, but San seemed harmless, the kid could barely walk straight.

“Hey,” Yunho threw out, squatting next to San as the boy looked up in surprise. His eyes were glazed over and hazy, and his hans were doing weird motions by his side, shirt dropped onto the ground. He was clearly discorporated, either into Aurora or just affected by some other hallucinogen. San wasn’t even present enough to greet Yunho, his hands just fluttered about in the air. Yunho sighed in defeat, standing up again to leave. San was a lost cause, another druggie in the streets that was too far gone, too addicted to help. Yunho ignored the guilt building in his stomach as he continued on, head focused forwards and eyes downcast.

Yunho allowed his feet to drag him further down the street, halting securely when a car nearly took him and his fragile yet so insignificant life halfway to mars (more like into the street). The sky was a comforting hazy blue, Yunho didn’t have the vocabulary nor mental clarity to depict a clear shade, but he imagined Wooyoung would describe it as some sort of bogus name like periwinkle or malachite.

He was fully aware that stopping in the middle of a crosswalk, much less in Hollywood, was not a safe idea. Yunho was also aware that he didn’t view his life as an asset, and neither did the stuck-up moms in minivans and youtube ‘stars’ flexing their dollar coins in their offbrand Mustangs. He was tempted to look back, find San on the street, perhaps he was still staring at the hard-working ants, but he couldn’t. That sort of reflex would get him killed, Aurora or Hollywood.

As soon as his peripheral vision caught the slight influx of red, Yunho’s feet picked up their pace and hastily moved him safely across the road and back onto the pavement. Closing his eyes was out of the question, and even so, the shadows casted by his eyelids would never provide him comfort. 

Yunho didn’t know many colors, their eccentric names nor their slight difference in shade, but he knew red. He knew red like no other color, from it’s lightest salmon to the eerie and familiar rust that spilled from a dead person’s neck as a cool blade ran against a vein. Yunho knew the shade of his blood when it collected in bubbling pearls from aged cuts, crimson. 

He smiled softly as scarlet bled into his vision, the stop sign opposite his crosswalk filled with vigor and spraypainted brick pulsating at the touch. His tongue caught between his teeth, and with great confidence he turned around, hands already outstretched to greet the man in question. It was with great confusion instead, that he was met with nothing but stereo silence, an unruly static buzz like that from a broken streetlamp at dusk bursting from buildings. His smile fell when blonde hair started running to him, eyes bleeding vermillion and feet melting into the broken, bruised, spotted pavement. 

Yunho could read the boy’s lips like he was screaming them from the rooftops, it was easy, far too easy, too familiar and warm to be real, breathing life. 

_Help me._

_Help me._

_Help me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello~ I hope you have been enjoying this so far. I honestly don't know how far I'm going to take this fic, but I have a plot lined up for the entirety of the fic as well as prequels and sequels, so we shall see. Below are a few common terms you will and have seen in this fic, that might need some explaining.
> 
> Aurora - The matrix, basically. All information and people are shown in databases that agents can exist and interact with. 'Agents' are people who work within Aurora to manage data and/or help protect Aurora from regular people. It's very useful for mobs who want profit, and for the government. I can't say much else about it, but just know that some people we have met are integral parts in Aurora's becoming ;)
> 
> The Slipstream - The transportation method that leads people to Aurora. Translates every person's memory to data, thus why Yunho and others go through flashbacks that they can get 'caught up in' within the slipstream. It's really dangerous, especially to people who have good memories that they don't want to leave/let go of. It's important to note that any sort of italic chunk you come across is someone going through the slipstream and experiencing a memory.
> 
> Diobrilgyl/Blitz - A drug that allows people to enter the slipstream/Aurora. The 'real' potent drug itself is not dangerous if taken within safe limits, but isn't painless. Blitz, a synthetic drug Hongjoong created to attract the regulars, is extremely dangerous (as we have found out!). Yunho takes it because he's a dumbass, and wants to divert attention from his suspicious actions with Seonghwa. Real Diobrilgyl is hard to come by in large amounts and is mostly utilized by the government, thus why many lower agents (such as Seonghwa and Wooyoung) prefer to use synthetic versions despite it's drawbacks. 
> 
> Blessed - Regular people, who don't have any connections to Aurora and have never been exposed. This is the vast majority of people.
> 
> Couple last notes : When in Aurora, a person's (lets say Wooyoung) body in reality moves around but is uncoordinated and doesn't talk (most of the time). Unlike this, people in the slipstream, like Yunho, who was caught halfway between reality and the slipstream, see themselves in the real world but can't ground themselves fully into the realistic headspace.
> 
> THANK YOU FOR TRYING OUT MY STUPID IDEA!


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